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Animation: Most Popular Articles

These articles are the most popular over the last month.

Free Animation ProgramsWant to try before you buy, or looking for something simple but functional with no strings attached? Here's a list of various animation software packages available for download. Some are entirely free, some are shareware, some are free with limited functions (with more available after paying), and some are free trials that either expire after time or come with certain critical options disabled.

Should You Use the Free Version of Google...As a 3D modeling program, Google SketchUp successfully unites principles of line drawing with 3D for a bare-bones program that lets you produce surprisingly complex 3D artwork.

How Japanese and American Animation DifferI'm not about to throw my towel in the ring over the fight between which is better, Japanese or American animation...but nonetheless, let's take a look at a comparison between the two and what makes them so markedly different.

How to Create a Basic 8-Frame Animated Walk-CycleThe walk cycle is one of the most important animation techniques to master, but you can simplify it a bit in Flash even when drawing each individual frame, whether in whole or in part. This basic stick-figure walk-cycle demonstrates the basic ideas and discusses key concepts of figures in motion.

A Beginner's Guide to Computer AnimationWhile animation is a complex art that can require years of schooling to perfect, for the hobbyist - and even for some self-taught professionals - it’s surprisingly easy to get started from the comfort of your own home and begin producing animations from scratch with just a little studying, hard work, and practice.

Five Inexpensive Animation Solutions for the MacFrustrated by the dearth of inexpensive animation solutions compatible with the robust and powerful Macintosh platform? Take a look at this list of five software packages that will let you animate for $250 or far less.

Everything You Need to Know about Walt Disney...Disney is no doubt one of the most famous names in the animation industry, known for providing entertainment directed to adults and children alike; with theme parks around the world and a world-class animation studio and business franchise, the company nearly dominates the industry.

Persistence of Vision: "Persistence of Vision" refers to the phenomenon where the retina retains an image for a brief split-second

Give Your 2D Animation Distinctive Style with...You've probably seen some pretty cool 2D animations that use style tricks a little different from the standard side-scrolling, black-lined textbook animation. There are tons of ways to make your animation stand out using unique tricks and experiments; here are a few pointers you can try.

Read My Lips: How to Lip-Synch for AnimationIf you want to add actual expression and realistic mouth-movements to your animation, it helps to study how the shape of the mouth changes with each sound. These ten basic phoneme shapes can match almost any sound of speech, in varying degrees of expression--and with the in-between frames moving from one to the other, are remarkably accurate.

How to Add Onion-Skinning to Your Flash AnimationFrame-by-frame animation can be difficult when you're working on one frame at a time with no reference for the previous or next frames. Flash has a solution for this dilemma--known as onion-skinning, an option that you can turn on that shows a range of frames both before and after your current frame.

How to Add Simple Stops in Flash Action ScriptThe stop command is most likely the most basic of all of Flash's ActionScript commands, and the most essential. It's also a good place to get started with familiarizing yourself with the concepts of working with ActionScripting.

5 Things To Do Before You Ever Start AnimatingReady to dive in and start animating? You may not be as ready as you think. These 5 pre-animation tips will help you define your workflow and direction to make sure you don't flounder on the way.

The Pros and Cons of Flash and Animated GIFsAsking if Flash is better than an animated GIF is rather like asking if a USB thumb drive is better than a floppy disk. Both have their purposes, and both can be useful - even if one is a bit limited and outdated.

Top 5 Uses for FlashFlash has many useful applications; from character animation to programming, it offers a dynamic platform for a multitude of uses. What's your favorite use for Flash?

What is a 3D Polygon?You've heard of polygons in geometry, but what do they mean in 3d modeling and animation?

How to Create an Animation-Ready CharacterWhether you draw your 2D animations traditionally or digitally, there are some skills essential to both incarnations of the craft. One is the ability to draw simple but effective animation characters with clean, easy lines and basic shapes.

Animating for Video Games vs. Animating for...Creating animations for video games is much different from creating animations for movies. The major difference is that a movie is meant simply to be viewed, while the purpose of a video game is to interact. For this reason, animating for video games can be much more difficult than animating for video games; however, this reason is only a broad generalization of the differences between the two genres.

iCloneiClone reminds me a great deal of Bryce's Poser, but advanced to the next level. Even the newest beginning animator can dive right in and have fun tweaking the preset models to create and animate your own

3D Animation: The creation of moving pictures in a three-dimensional digital environment. This is done by sequencing

How to Make an Animation Flip BookEver tried to make a animation flip book? It's not nearly as complicated as it seems, and can be a good way to practice your animation principles by using unorthodox sequential animations instead of keyframes and in-betweens.

Why Computer Animators Should Learn a...For those with a more artistic and less technical bent, learning computer animation can seem a daunting task involving complex programming and impossible technical requirements. But is it really necessary to learn computer programming to learn computer animation?

A Beginner's Guide to Animation Character...Before you start animating, it's a good idea to draw up a character sheet/character breakdown of the subject of your animation, both for reference and to familiarize you with drawing different views. Let's take a look at the basics for a character sheet.

A Realistic Look at Freelance Animation WorkWhile working for yourself can be extremely rewarding and quite convenient, you should always be aware of the added responsibility and obligation implied, and of any hardships that you might encounter and will need to plan for. The points that I'll cover here are things that I've learned from my own experiences as a freelance artist, animator, designer, and writer; I hope that they'll help you as well.

Storyboarding Tips to Plan for Your AnimationUsing a storyboard will help you organize your animation, and match you mental visualizations of scenes with the written script. If you use a storyboard you'll find that you'll be able to plan your animations more cohesively with clear marker points to show progress, and you'll save yourself a lot of time and trouble when struggling to make the entire thing come together from beginning to end.

Flash Tip: Tools of the Trade: Drawing in Flash...If you've been working in Flash for any period of time, by now you've probably realized that mouse-drawing anything beyond a basic pre-defined shape can be pretty time-consuming, and pretty difficult, if not downright impossible (and maddening). I'd recommend getting a graphics tablet.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Detailed Animation in...Creating a detailed, full-color character animation using traditional frame-by-frame methods is a long and at times difficult process, even in Flash. For this lesson we're going to take the first step and rough-sketch our basic motion for a simple action, using block shapes representing a character we wish to animate.

How to Choose an Animation Software PackageConsidering how expensive animation software can be and the difficulty of returning software to many retailers, picking the wrong animation software for your needs can be a costly mistake. What questions should you ask yourself when selecting an animation software package?

The Verdict on 'Pivot Stickfigure Animator'...Creating a stickfigure animation isn't as easy as it looks, especially in detailed programs such as Flash. In a custom-built program just for that, though, it's so simple it's painful - and that's where Pivot Stickfigure Animator comes in.

Flash Frame-By-Frame Animation: Keyframe and...Rather than working with simple shapes and reusable objects, let's work with the techniques used in cinematic animation: hand-drawing each frame using keyframing and in-betweening techniques to describe progressive motion.

Are Clothing And Hair On 3D Models Created...3D animations often show amazingly detailed hair and clothing. But are they modeled individually? Do animators create each strand of hair, and design entire outfits that can be added to characters like paper dolls?

What is an Animated GIF?We see animated GIFs all the time (no, really, even with Flash and PNGs, we do). But what are they, exactly?

So You Want to be a...Anyone can seek out a career in computer animation, regardless of any measure of artistic talent; all that you need is to know what you want, and to be willing to put in the necessary effort to achieve it. This article gives a basic set of guidelines on where to start, and a little advice on how to pursue your chosen field.

How Do I Get Into Animation School?Trying to figure out how to get into animation school? Just like any other college, there are a few requirements - and while some are the same, others are wildly different.

CelA cel is the transparent sheet of plastic upon which final animation artwork is transferred in order to be painted in and then laid over a background and filmed.

Toon Boom AnimateToon Boom Animate is yet another installation in a growing line of award-winning animation packages.

Anime Studio Pro 5While Anime Studio 5 definitely isn't a program that you can dive in and start using without at least a passing knowledge of the fundamentals of animation, it still provides a rich, full-featured animation experience that simplifies the process and allows you to produce high quality animations for less effort.

What is 2.5D Animation?2.5D animation? Is that a half-finished 3D animation? Not quite. 2.5D animation is a way to make 2D jump off the page into 3D space.

Flash Animation 2: Shape TweeningWith this lesson, we'll pick up at the end of where we left off in Lesson 1, with a lesson on shape tweening in Flash MX. Shape tweening can take two different shapes at keyframes set any number of frames apart, and mathematically calculate the frames in between to produce a smooth animation depicting the transformation between one and the other. Page 2.

Flash Tip: Animated GIF vs. SWF Publishing for...While Flash SWFs are considered one of the more advanced methods for publishing animated and streaming content to the web, there are times when using an animated GIF for smaller, shorter animations would be more to your advantage.

Keeping Up With the StudiosComputer animation can be be fun, but it can also be quite costly. But it's not always necessary to spend that kind of money; for the curious, the studious, or even the aspiring professional, there are much more cost-effecitve ways to get your feet wet. If you know where to look and how to shop, it's not that hard to compete with the big boys without spending the big bucks.

What is Limited Animation?Limited animation isn't quite what it sounds like. It doesn't suffer from limitations or deficiencies, but instead refers to techniques used to limit the amount of work involved in producing a full-length animation.

Creating Drop Shadow Text in Flash CS3One great thing about the newest versions of Flash is that many effects that previously had to be constructed manually are now automatic features - including text drop shadows. Page 2.

Animation Software Review: CrazyTalk AnimatorAs an animation program, CrazyTalk Animator doesn't quite fit the mold of typical frame-based animation software -- but it does make it extremely easy and extremely entertaining to apply animation principles to photographs and illustrated content.

Do Animators Draw Backgrounds in Every Frame?Many animations feature detailed backgrounds that the characters move against; the backgrounds also sometimes move. Do animators draw and paint these backgrounds in every frame of animation?

Computer Animation: The term "computer animation" covers a broad range of subjects, but overall can be defined as the creation

Creating a Custom Mouse Cursor in FlashWhether it bounces, jiggles, squiggles, wiggles, glitters, or just sits there looking pretty, you can turn it into your own custom Flash mouse cursor to replace the default. Page 3.

Cylekx 2.9Cylekx 2.9 is bland, unimpressive addition to the line-up of second-tier graphics and animation programs.

Stop-Motion AnimationStop-motion animation is animation created by filming real objects adjusted to appear to move one frame at a time.

Understanding the Main Tools in 3D Studio Max...The third part of our first lesson in 3D Studio Max's tools covers the panel of primary tools taking up the right-hand side of the interface. These are the main tools that you will use to create, modify, and control your objects.

How to Control Flash Movie Clips with...It's time to take a bit of a leap in your Flash education by learning how to control movie clip timelines from within the main timeline. To do this we're going to use buttons to tell Flash when to play individual movie clip animations.

Animating from Pencil to PC: Rough Motion...The first step in starting off your animation is to get your basic motion down. For that you don't need perfect drawings; you can use stick figures, as long as they capture your basic proportions and get your motion down. Grab your light desks and get ready to go.

What Are Structural Lines and Center Lines?It's almost impossible to draw a perfectly balanced character in symmetrical perspective without a few guidelines, let alone animate them accurately. The most basic of guidelines are called structural lines and center lines.

Flash Tip: Swap SymbolThe Swap Symbol function is just like Flash's Swap Bitmap function, but instead lets you switch any symbol on your stage out with any symbol in your library.

Making an Animated ScreenSaver Using Visual BasicThis is just a quick dip at the trot, a basic checklist of things to do for those comfortable with Visual Basic; this isn't intended to be a full step-by-step, but more a basic overview as to the steps inherent in creating an easy 2D animated screen saver using the language.

Flash Tip: Exporting a PreviewWith a work-in-progress, it's always good to be able to stop and check how the overall project is coming along--especially in Flash.

From 2D to 3D: Using Textures to Create Raised...Three-dimensional models can possess amazing levels of detail; not only in sculpted shapes, but also in texture. In truth, what you're looking at isn't clever modeling, but an illusion of texturing.

Flash Tip: Shape HintsShape Hints make it easier for Flash to interpret how it's supposed to morph one complex shape into another in a shape tween.

Are You Protected by Copyright?Are your animations protected by copyright? Do you know, or have you never thought about protecting your work? Take a look at this article to find out what rights are guaranteed to you by U.S. copyright law, how to obtain proof of those rights, and how to further protect them.

Inverse KinematicsInverse kinematics is a form of physics used in animation to determine the movements of jointed constructs.

Preparing a Professional Demo ReelFor an animator, the demo reel is like that final exam in your senior year, complete with all of the extra work, stresses, and last-minute panics. And like the final exam, it can mean success or failure--not only in your education, but in your career. You've probably worked on a variety of projects during animation school, some fun, some not. But do you need to include every last one of those projects in your demo reel?

Flash Professional 8While Macromedia Flash 8 is a great program that continues the tradition of excellence begun by its previous incarnations, upgrading from Flash MX isn't really essential to continue animating and developing effectively.

Animation Tip: Tools of the Trade: Light TablesWhether you're drawing 2D animation for cel painting or doing the preliminary pencil work to be scanned in for a computer animation, a light table is one of the most important tools for frame-by-frame animation that you'll ever own.

How Can 3D Animation Be Rendered As 2D Animation?Numerous animated television shows and movies make use of 3D animation rendered to look 2D, inked lines and all. Some use wholly 3D-rendered animation; others combine it with hand-drawn 2D. But how is it done?

Storytelling For AnimationAnimating is about much more than just sequencing frames together to create motion. It's about telling a story - and it takes quite a bit of thought, imagination, and planning to make sure it's a good one.

Glossary: RasterRaster images are images in which color data for each individual pixel is stored as part of the file information.

Frame RateThe frame rate is the measure of the number of frames displayed sequentially per second of animation in order to create the illusion of motion. The higher the frame rate, the smoother the motion, because there are more frames per second to display the transition from point A to point B.